As what we have just reported just moments ago, DiGi has officially revealed the availability of LTE for smartphone through its newly refreshed line-up of DG SmartPlan. That being said, the LTE connectivity is not activated automatically.
By that, we mean there might be couple of things that DiGi customers need to do in order to use it. One such requirement could be a new USIM card.
According to the LTE section of DiGi’s official website, there are three general requirements before DiGi customers are able to utilize LTE on their smartphone. They are:
1. Use a device with LTE support
2. Have your USIM in the device
3. Be within DiGi’s LTE coverage area
Requirements no 1 and 3 are rather obvious but that is not exactly the case for requirement no 2 especially if you are a long-time DG SmartPlan subscriber. The LTE connectivity is only available for users with a USIM card that is marked with the letter U (as shown below). If you don’t feel like popping out your current SIM card from your phone, you are also able to verify your SIM card via SMS.
As pointed in our previous article, DiGi LTE is available for customers under the new DG SmartPlan 50, 78, and 108 as well as the previous DG SmartPlan 58 and the existing SmartPlan 148. As for iPhone owners, the LTE connectivity is available for all existing iDiGi customers.
That being said, it is stated in the DG SmartPlan FAQ that DiGi is still working to deliver LTE connectivity to DG SmartPlan customers that subscribed to the service before 25 February 2014. Hence, there is a possiblity that some long-time DiGi customers that is still on the older DG SmartPlan might not able to utilize LTE right away despite owning both LTE-enabled smartphone and USIM card.
Last but not least, DiGi has also listed down a number of devices that the telco touted as “DiGi 4G LTE Ready Device” which include iPhone 5S, HTC One, Samsung Galaxy S4, BlackBerry Z10, Huawei Ascend P1 LTE, Sony Xperia Z and many more. However, our own test below using a LTE-ready Nokia Lumia 625 showed that a non-listed device seems to work fine as well:
Tested with a personal DG SmartPlan 78 account with test server set to DiGi Petaling Jaya, and LTE signal indicator is full.
Meanwhile, DiGi has scheduled a media session tomorrow which should be a perfect opportunity for the company to clarify all the issues regarding its LTE network for smartphones. Do let us if you have any questions to relay to the telco since we’ll be attending the session ourselves.
